Our prompt for this project was somewhat straight forward, to create a two minute sci-fi clip. What we thought of at first when starting our project was the show Futurama and all their futuristic and colorful characters that are on the TV Show. When our group brainstormed, we created characters that we thought would appear on this TV show, and would be appealing to look at.  Our resolution to our project was a good and funny feud between two characters that had a twist to it and took place in a not so sci-fi location, a restaurant.

One part of our project that we thought worked out where the solid characters that we used in our final animation. Additionally, the scene where our alien chef is sleeping is a scene that our group thought turned out very well because of the detail we put into the scene and how it played out.

Although there were some difficulties to our project, we had a few challenges that put our progress on hold. One example was having an overhaul on both our drawn characters and our backgrounds. This prevented us from added more scenes to our project and therefore limited our creativity. These characters that we created were drawn on a page and scanned to our computers. That process left our characters with pencil marks and blemishes that did not go with the overall design of our project. The old background also had 3D aspects that did not fit into the look of our animation, because the majority of our designs were created in 2D.

Our background changed dramatically from 3D to 2D and was now suitable for our clip. We innovated our characters from hand drawn to computer designed, which allowed us to animate with ease. With these edits we managed to correct our mistakes and improved our final piece.  

The outcome was not what we originally hoped for but in fact it was better than our original idea and the quality has greatly improved.

During this course, we were assigned to create a short science fiction film that was to be about two minutes long. We brainstormed with many different and varying ideas including, but not limited to, clones, robots, floating islands, overpopulation, world hunger, and drought. Our solution was to go much simpler, and do an alien farmer with his pet alpaca getting some water. 

Our project was about an alien farmer named Xee. He needed water to keep his farm running, so he went on a quest with his three eyed alpaca to find water. They leave, and then find a temple. The temple has a giant floating orb with two buttons on it. Xee presses a button, and it starts to rain. Everything is good, and Xee's family is happy because Xee can continue farming. In the process we used photoshop to create the characters and environments along with after effects to animate them.

For our animation we had a lot of inspiration. Our inspiration started with Emojis and an Apple Watch. We thought about different ways to incorporate those two things into our animation. We first thought of doing something with robots or aliens and taking over the world, but that seemed to be too popular. We then came up with our idea of having emojis in a very advanced technology watch for aliens or robots to use to communicate. Once we had this idea, we needed to decide whether to use aliens or robots. We decided to use aliens as our creatures because it gave us endless creative options. We then created our storyboard about aliens crashing onto Earth and a scientist trying to communicate with them; however, the aliens cannot communicate with the scientist due to language barrier. As a result, the scientist gives the aliens an advanced technology watch which emojis on it which allows the aliens to communicate with the scientist. While animating we had to cut some of our initial thoughts due to the given time frame we had. However, our story is still there. Once our storyboard was done, we started creating all our characters and scenery in Photoshop and then took our characters and scenery and animated them together in After Effects. We then combined all the scenes, put in sound effects, and our background music and we have E.T. (Emoji Translation)! 

1. Each student is responsible for a minimum of one post for every day of studio except for the Thursday before the final presentation. Photographs for the post can be taken during the day however the post must be written after school.

These posts have two purposes, they will you help you to be more thoughtful about the design decisions you are making and they will be key to creating your process post for your final presentation.
The post should be at least 150 words long and include at least three images.

2. During the day, make a list in your sketchbook of key changes you make. or are thinking about making, to your project and why you made these changes.

Unity: every part of your design should work together toward the same purpose, concept or solution. With that in mind, how do the decisions you made today work within that goal?
Value Judgement: If you made a decision because you "liked" or "didn't like" something, we want you to "unpack" that and try to understand why you felt this way.

3. Discuss and show images of the iterations you made during the day, label the images in Illustrator with arrows and text to point out the differences between the iterations. In the text portion of your post, go into more detail about the changes you made between iterations and your thinking behind these changes.

Tip! Enable SCAYT (SpellCheckAsYouType) by clicking on the ABC button above the text field.

Have you ever watched animated movies like Toy Story, Shrek, Wall-E and Finding Nemo and wondered how they made the film, came up with the story, or created all those awe-inspiring effects? In this two-week studio, we will introduce students to the art of visual effects, digital motion graphics, green-screening, and storytelling as well as the basics behind digital filmmaking. During the two weeks, students will learn the entire process of creating a short film piece, from pre-production aspects such as storyboarding, to production, including both the technical and directorial side, to post-production, including visual editing and sound mixing. Students will come up with ideas for stories and then tell these stories through short mixed-media pieces, and the only thing stopping them is their imagination!

The studio will also focus on understanding different forms of storytelling as portrayed in modern films, games, and digital apps.  Students will learn how to create compelling visual effects as seen in “Hollywood style” movies and use them in their stories using Adobe After Effects and also learn how to use Final Cut Pro for their final production. The studio is intended to allow students to be playful and creative with media while being thoughtful and critical in communicating a message. Under the guidance of NuVu’s coaches and industry experts, students in this studio will learn about digital filmmaking, digital art, illustration, storytelling and production.

Focus Skills/Subjects/Technologies:

   Illustration, Digital Art & Graphic Design

   Digital Filmmaking

   Storytelling, Storyboarding & Production

  Social Sciences

  Adobe Photoshop

  Adobe After Effects

  Final Cut Pro